The nameless one

Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make tsar of Russia. This observation was brought on by another report I read in The Times, this time about Ivan VI, Russia’s forgotten tsar. Ivan was not just forgotten by missing, having no known grave. Now his remains have seemingly been uncovered in the village of Kholmogory in the Archangelsk region of northern Russia.

Ivan’s fate makes that of the fictional man in the iron mask seem almost benign. He was a loser in a contest where to be in second place was lethal. Ivan succeeded the Empress Anna, his great-aunt, in October 1740 when he was only eight weeks old. But before he even knew what it was to be Autocrat of All the Russias he was overthrown in December 1741 in a coup organised by Elizabeth, daughter of Peter the Great. Elizabeth was proclaimed empress while the unfortunate child tsar was sent to Kholmogory on the White Sea, where he remained for the next twelve years, isolated from family and friends, seeing only his jailers.

It was ferociously cruel, given his age, but rival claimants to the imperial throne were a serious worry to a nation that in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries had gone through a period of anarchy and upheaval, forever known as the Time of Troubles. Concerned by fresh troubles, Elizabeth had Ivan secretly moved to the Shlisselburg Fortress near Saint Petersburg after rumours began to spread about his presence in the north. There he was held simply as the “nameless one”, his identity unknown even to the prison governor.

Conditions for Ivan improved slightly on the accession of Peter III in 1762 only to deteriorate even further after he was overthrown in yet another palace coup. Catherine II, the new empress, ordered that the “nameless one” be held in even more stringent conditions, placed in manacles and scourged if necessary. His cell contained no natural light and the only book he was allowed to read was the Bible. Catherine also issued secret instructions that Ivan was to be killed instantly if any attempt was made to release him.

Ivan spent twenty years in solitary confinement before the end came, something of a mercy in the circumstances. Although a state secret of the first rank, his presence in Shlisselburg was finally discovered in the summer of 1764. In the course of a bungled attempt to free him Ivan, now aged twenty-three, was stabbed to death by his guards in accordance with the Empress’ orders.

Hitherto he was assumed to have been buried in an unmarked grave in the fortress. The new discovery was made as archaeologists were searching for the grave of his father in Kholmogory. A sarcophagus was found containing the skeleton of a man of Ivan’s age whose left shoulder blade had been pierced by a sword. Subsequent tests in Moscow at the Russian Forensic Medicine Centre have confirmed that the bones are those of the lost Tsar, according to Vladimir Stanulevich of the Emperor Foundation, a body set up to examine the remains.

It’s possible, I suppose, though until comparative tests are carried out some doubts must remain. The obvious question is why would such trouble have been taken to carry Ivan’s body all the way back to the White Sea? Catherine had no more rivals, so it is possible that she agreed to this final act of mercy, allowing Ivan to be buried alongside other members of his family.

But the Romanov family remains wary, issuing a statement that Ivan’s identity should be confirmed as a certainty before he is reinterred in the family vault in the Saint Peter and Saint Paul Cathedral in Petersburg. The Emperor Foundation is asking for government help to carry out DNA tests on Ivan’s siblings, who died in Danish exile. One can only hope that the nameless one is close to being named at last.

The Hippopotamus

If one wants to understand Tsar Alexander III, to understand the nature of the man, and the regime he created, I would suggest if in St. Petersburg one should visit the Marble Palace, where one will find a huge bronze equestrian statue. Grotesque in proportion and appearance, it was meant to create an impression of awesome autocratic power. But no sooner had it appeared than people started to call it 'The Hippopotamus', a name it has carried ever since. When the sculptor himself heard of the popular reaction to his work, after it rode into the world in 1909, he said "I don't get into politics. I just depicted one animal on another." :-))

You see, the Hippopotamus is a perfect symbol for the Russia of Alexander III, in all of its colossal immobility. In his determination to preserve the autocratic character of the state, Alexander moved firmly away from the path of reform, previously pursued by his own father. Although the Russian economy-and Russian capitalism-developed rapidly during the period of his rule, the state became ever more repressive and reactionary. Amongst other things the powers of the Okhrana, the Tsarist secret police, were considerably increased. The 1881 Statute of State Security, which Lenin later described as the 'real Russian Constitution', extended extraordinary authority to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, allowing it to prohibit gatherings of more than twelve people, close schools and universities, and prosecute any individual for perceived political crimes.

Besides reinforcing the apparatus of repression, Alexander also decided that the path to national salvation lay in further measures of Russification, carried on at the expense of the Poles and other minorities within the Empire. The Orthodox Church was promoted above all others, and Russia's large Jewish minority, confined within a designated Pale of Settlement, was subject to increasing levels of persecution and discrimination.

But it was in the countryside that Alexander's reactionary policy was at its most damaging for the long-term prospects of the Romanovs. Peasant self-government was undermined by giving increased powers to the zemstva, dominated by the nobles. Still worse, Alexander II's rural reforms were effectively rendered meaningless by the appointment of the so-called Land-Captains, officials answerable to the provincial Governor-Generals. These Land-Captains had the power to overrule peasant courts and remove peasant officials. They could also arrest any of the peasants under their authority, fine them or even subject them to corporal punishment. For the peasants the system was so oppressive that many were convinced that serfdom was being restored, especially after 1893, when they were banned from leaving their local mir, the communes within which they lived.

Alexander had the character, the stature and the will to force his model of autocracy on Russia. It was an example he bequeathed to his son, Nicholas, always in awe of his formidable father. He filled the mind of unimaginative Nicky with all sorts of outdated notions and values. The last of the Tsars was a man filled with good intentions; and with these he took the road to hell